When California’s Proposition 8 (Prop. 8) eliminated the right to marry a person of the same sex, it aggravated a fissure between the black community and the gay community. Though Prop. 8 had nothing to do with race on the surface, the controversy that followed its passage was charged with racial blame. This Article uses the Prop. 8 controversy, including the ensuing Perry litigation challenging...
Fast and Furious, or Slow and Steady? The Flow of Guns From the United States to Mexico
This empirical legal study examines Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) trace data from crime guns seized in Mexico and traced back to their states of origin in the United States. It uses Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression to analyze the relationship between U.S. states’ crime gun export rates to Mexico and state gun control laws. The presence of four state gun control...
Parole Denial Habeas Corpus Petitions: Why the California Supreme Court Needs to Provide More Clarity on the Scope of Judicial Review
The California Penal Code makes clear that parole is supposed to be the norm, not the exception, for inmates sentenced to life in prison. But these inmates, convicted for murder, rape, and kidnapping and commonly known as lifers, never had greater than a 7 percent estimated likelihood of release from 1991 to 2010. California is unique in that if the Board of Parole Hearings (BPH) approves parole...
Probative or Prejudicial: Can Gang Evidence Trump Reasonable Doubt?
This study was designed to examine the potential biasing effect of gang evidence on jury verdicts. Two hundred four participants viewed one of two versions of a simulated trial that included opening statements and closing arguments by the prosecution and defense, and direct and cross-examination of the eyewitness and investigating officer. Half of the participants saw a version of the trial that...
Call for Submissions: Volume 62
The UCLA Law Review is seeking submissions for publication in Volume 62: Issues 1, 2, and 3; and for publication in its online component, Discourse.
How to Feel Like a Woman, or Why Punishment Is a Drag
If a man in prison says that he was made “to feel like a woman,” this is commonly understood to mean that he was degraded, dehumanized, and sexualized. This association of femininity with punishment has significant implications for the way our society understands not only the sexual abuse of men in prison but also sexual abuse generally. These important implications are usually overlooked...
Free: Accounting for the Costs of the Internet’s Most Popular Price
Offers of free services abound on the Internet. But the focus on the price rather than on the cost of free services has led consumers into a position of vulnerability. For example, even though internet users typically exchange personal information for the opportunity to use these purportedly free services, one court has found that users of free services are not consumers for purposes of...
The Case for Tailoring Patent Awards Based on Time-to-Market
One of the hallmarks of our patent system is that it provides a one-size-fits-all reward for innovation. The uniform patent laws offer insufficient incentives to develop some socially valuable inventions, and they offer excessive rewards for other inventions, which imposes an unnecessary tax on consumers and subsequent innovators. If the government could adequately tailor patent awards to account...